Statistically unlikely songs I have heard in bars lately

Bloodhound Gang - The Bad Touch

Simply Red - The Best of.  The ENTIRE ALBUM!  How desperate was I to be out that night?

Hanson - MmmBop

Meredith Brooks - Bitch

 

Most insane genre change (songs directly after each other):

Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up

Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name of

Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Favourites of the day

Search string: Vasco Era Groupie - I'm happy with that!

Pastry: Essentially a giant sausage roll without the sausage. Very greasy and flaky. (Really my favourite is baklava though)

Sight through the front door: Guy riding a donkey whilst leading an unburdened horse / Favourite Person - tie

Random old school song: Martika - Love, Thy Will Be Done

Facial hair: American (of course) guy with shoulder length dirty blonde hair and a goatee minus the middle bit. A perfect rectangle without the base. What is this called?!

Person: Sam

Website: http://www.ragadio.com/oafh/page18.html Hilarious! Found whilst searching for a name for favourite facial hair. French Fork? Balbo? Chin Curtain? Hulihee? I especially like the names "Handlebar and Chin Puff" and "Friendly Mutton Chops". [I do not endorse facial hair!]

Oh Google ...

What kind of people am I attracting that they visit this site looking for " chinese woman passport photo sample"?  Dodgy!  I bet they stole my passport in Chinatown in Sydney.  Police!

 

"Wendy's burgers Auckland" is much more acceptable.  I fully endorse them.  Asides from Dominion Road, who really should get their act together a bit more.  So I only partially endorse them.

 

People are still looking for hallucinogenic honey in Turkey.  And I am fooling them more often by continuing to put the phrase on this site ... teehee.

Well it's a start ...

I've edited a few of my previous posts about Gallipoli, Ephesus, Butterfly Valley and Olympos, and the combined new article has been published today with some of my photos on the Turkish Travel website. 

 

If you're a regular reader, you've already read this, but I thought I'd put this link up for your interest.

 

[I have not read through the website thoroughly, but Turkish Travel do seem to provide good, interesting information and they have been very pleasant to deal with whilst requesting my stories.]

Success!

Not for lack of anything else to write, but mostly for lack of motivation to write book reviews, witty observations or even reply to my email, I would just like to say that I had some success with a complaint letter or two.  Hooray!

 

Firstly, the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs has officially admitted that I have only lost two, not three, passports - hence I may not have to have a full inquiry if this should happen again.

 

Secondly, the airline that messed up my Beijing-Hong Kong flight  has admitted partial fault (I think, I have yet to see the letter), and have promised me some form of upgrade at some point in the future.  Should I choose to fly with them again, that is.

 

I have yet to hear back about the third letter I sent on the same day (I am going to make a great pernickety old letter writing lady one day), but I hope to receive some sort of gift voucher soon!

 

 

Oh, hello officer ...

I was just about to start rewriting the chalkboard in the lovely sunshine when my boss told me that I should go inside and do that later.

It took me a few seconds to realise why.

The Jandarma (police) are visiting. We're in various levels of trouble because of the cantankerous upstairs neighbour (also a relative of the management) who has it in for the live music that is such a big part of the restaurant experience. It's best that the cops don't know that I am "working" here - there could be all sorts of issues to arise from this.

So as I type I am pretending to be a tourist using the free internet facility and being eternally grateful you can't see much inside the restaurant from outside in the blinding glare ...

Go Helen

Well apparently someone has been busy in the international relations department (could it be Winston the Asian hater?!).  

 

I have just checked the Working Holidaymaker page on the NZ government website and there are 6 more countries than there were when I checked sometime last year.  Go Labour.

 

Not that it makes too much of a difference to me right now, but I can apparently go and holiday for a year whilst supplementing my travel with semi-permanent work in the following countries:

 

Argentina - Belgium - Canada - Chile - Czech Republic - Denmark - Finland - France - Germany - Hong Kong Special Administrative Region - Ireland - Italy - Japan - Korea - Malaysia - Malta - Netherlands - Norway - Singapore - Sweden - Taiwan - Thailand - United Kingdom - Uruguay

 

Huzzah!  I have only done two of them.  But I only have time to do four or five more ... oh dear ...

Get it off, get it off!

Just when I was starting to miss writing about those not-so-rare problematic tables in restaurants ...

 

I had a table come in the other night when I thought we weren't taking any more people.  I still can't get used to the Turkish way of accepting every person they can squeeze money from, no matter how late it is or how small the bill ends up being.  I guess since they're not paying us hourly, they can do what they want.

 

The new table was a couple with a young child, maybe a year old (I am taking a wild guess at the age).  The father was quite normal looking, but the mother's look just screamed 80s crack whore.  They were Turkish, but she had peroxide blonde hair with four inch roots, crimped and pulled into a frizzy side ponytail.  Her black eyeliner was so thick it rivalled even Avril Lavigne's racoon face.  On second glance, the off the shoulder top was purely of my own imagination, but she was wearing a lot of white and very tight jeans.

 

As they were Turkish, I let the others take care of them and I carried on cleaning behind the bar. 

 

A happy but piercing child's laugh made me look up.  I have become almost accustomed to the non-existent health and safety standards here (more to come later), but when I saw the father helping the kid stand on the table, I couldn't help but scream internally ("Get it off, get it off!"). 

 

I had to look away.

 

Later, the strung out mother went to the bathroom, leaving the child (who was still on the table) in the care of the father. 

 

She was gone for about twenty minutes, and her food arrived during this time.  I already thought she was on drugs, and that didn't help matters.

 

She was the only one eating and I'm fairly sure they underpaid us when they finally left. 

 

There was food all over the table when I went to clean it up, and the baby didn't even touch the plate. 

 

I hope they don't come back!

Eminem? Are you sure?

The Turkish music is starting to do my head in.  Especially because the guys who work here seem to have a really high tolerance for listening to the same two albums over and over and over ad nauseum.  I knew it was going to be bad when I started recognising the lyrics that I still can't understand.

 

I went souvenir shopping the other day and the lovely shopkeeper had a Jack Johnson album on repeat.  I know I said I'd be happy enough never to hear him again when all I heard in Laos and Thailand was Jack Johnson and Bob Marley, but I repent.  I still love Jack.  Especially in Turkey.

 

You would not believe how happy I was to hear Justin Timberlake come into the restaurant mix.  There is a lot of western music on this computer but it's played very rarely.  I relish the opportunity to be able to sing along and enjoy the poppiest of pop songs.  Except for that terrible J-Lo and LL Cool J song that came on after.  I could have done without that.

 

Funnily enough, during JT, the manager's twenty year old sister said "Eminem!" 

 

She doesn't speak much English at all. 

 

So I said, "No, Justin Timberlake." 

 

She insisted, "Eminem, Turkish name Eminem!"

 

I'm pretty sure there's a difference ... and I'm pretty sure Eminem wouldn't want these sorts of rumours spread around, even in a little town in Turkey!

Hair, not the musical ...

I ran away from the restaurant yesterday with one of my new friends and her visiting buddies.  I think being stuck in the same building anywhere will drive you insane after a while and this building is no exception.

 

So when the other kids came in and asked if I had time to leave right then, I jumped straight up and ran to get my bag and jacket. 

 

I didn't really care where the destination was, but it turned out we were going to Avanos and then Ürgüp. 

 

The nearby towns were a nice change from Göreme, a little different in their feel, definitely not as touristy as here.  Ürgüp has a great lookout which would have been even better on a sunny day.

 

The highlight would have to have been in Avanos, however.  Straight ahead of the bus stop was the destination our guide was so excited to show us. 

 

The disturbing-sounding Hair Museum is housed within the same complex as the Chez Galip pottery studio.  On entry we were greeted by a resident potter who was throwing pots on a traditional foot-spun wheel.  We happily accepted wine in eggcup-sized pottery beakers and watched a demonstration.  One of our little team was braver than me and attempted to make something recognisable from the local river clay.  He ended up with a small dish that he "made" with a lot of help from the potter.  It was entertaining though and patently obvious how strong the potter's legs had to be as our volunteer could not make the wheel spin nearly fast enough on his own.

 

After the pottery interlude, we ducked through some low doorways into the cave system the showrooms are set up in.  The bright display lights and colourful clay creations gave way to what was completely unexpected, even knowing what I was coming to see. 

 

The long, narrow cave stretched away into the distance, every visible part of the wall covered in small pieces of paper, each scrawled with names, dates and details, and finished by a lock of human hair trailing towards the ground.  The hair hung dry and still, tentacles of some latent monster waiting to cling to unsuspecting passersby.  The curls and wisps were like stalactites that I had to duck low under for fear of being infected with the touch of dead hair.

 

I hate dead hair.  As soon as it leaves its head it becomes repulsive to me.  My sister possibly has a greater aversion, but nonetheless it grossed me out.  So of course I had to leave something as well. 

 

One of the other girls and I submitted ourselves to the chop, and left a tiny donation from the backs of our heads.  These were taped to our little slips of paper (people have left phone numbers, email addresses, residential addresses and even photos - are they looking for proposals?!) which were then pinned onto the wall. 

 

The hairfest didn't stop there.  There was a further hair-encrusted cave and passageway which led out into the main showrooms.

 

I don't know why but it feels good to be part of a legacy of ickiness.